Players Championship

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Sergio Garcia was only 19 when he first challenged Tiger Woods during the final round of the 1999 PGA Championship. Woods nipped the fist-pumping Spaniard - then affectionately known as El Nino - by a shot for a second major championship. Yet, the stage was set for a classic rivalry. It never happened. Tiger would do his part, but Sergio could not keep up, especially when the two were paired together. Garcia, now 33, will get another chance to stand up to the pressure of a pairing with Woods on Saturday when the two longtime foes face off in the final group at the Players Championship.

Joe Daley won the Senior Players Championship for his first Champions Tour title, closing with a two-under-par 68 for a two-stroke victory over Tom Lehman at Pittsburgh. The 51-year-old Daley, winless in his brief PGA Tour career, had a 14-under 266 total at Fox Chapel. He earned $405,000 and full Champions Tour status for a calendar year. Lehman finished with a 69. He was trying to win his second straight Champions Tour major after taking the Regions Traditions in his previous start.

Defending champion Fred Couples birdied the final three holes for a seven-under 63 and the second-round lead in the Senior Players Championship in Pittsburgh. Couples, the winner last year at Westchester Country Club in Harrison, N.Y., had an 11-under 129 total on the Fox Chapel course. Joe Daley was a stroke back after a 64. Tom Lehman was third at seven under after a 66. Olin Browne had a tournament-record 62 to reach five under. He opened with a 73. :: Veronica Felibert shot a career-best six-under 65 to take the first-round lead in the LPGA Tour's NW Arkansas Championship at Rogers, Ark. China's Shanshan Feng , the LPGA Championship winner this month, was a stroke back.

Writers from around the Tribune Co. will predict the winner of theU.S. Open, which starts Thursday at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. Check back throughout the day for their responses and give us your predictions in the comments section. Bill Dwyre, Los Angeles Times Steve Stricker will win the U.S. Open this week because San Francisco's Olympic Club is a fastidious course and Stricker is a fastidious player. Also, he is due. Think of his victory as a mirror-image to Darren Clarke's win at last year's British Open.

When Tiger Woods won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in late March, many speculated that the former No. 1 player in the world had finally righted the ship and rediscovered the swing that used to rule golf. Of course, then he finished 40th in the Masters and missed the cut in last week's Wells Fargo Championship and the questions resurfaced about his revamped swing and recovery from a two-year slide. The Players Championship, which Woods has pulled out of the last two years, would be another testing ground.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Looking back now, Rory McIlroy is quick to admit that skipping the Players Championship was a mistake last year. "It wasn't one of my brightest moments," the world's top-ranked golfer said. "Yeah, I'm glad to be back. " Wonder if Bubba Watson will feel the same way next year. Or Charl Schwartzel. Or Darren Clarke. For those who didn't pick up on the link, they are three of the last five major champions — none of whom are on the TPC Sawgrass campus this week.

After a night in which severe winds swept through Southern California, Tiger Woods and K.J. Choi found welcome calm Thursday morning in Thousand Oaks as they teed off in the Chevron World Challenge. Not ones to waste an opportunity, Choi birdied the first five holes at Sherwood Country Club and Woods was nearly as good, with birdies on four of the five. But then the winds reappeared with gusto and, while Woods struggled on the back nine, Choi held steady and the South Korean finished atop the first-round leaderboard with a six-under-par 66. Woods, seeking his first win in two years, was tied for second place with Steve Stricker after both shot three-under 69s on the Jack Nicklaus-designed course nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Reporting from San Martin, Calif. — The way the past two years have gone, Tiger Woods now appears to be taking the resurrection of his golf career one step at a time. Literally. "First of all," he says, "I'm able to walk the golf course. " And that, alone, offers some hope for his chances at the Frys.com Open, which begins Thursday at CordeValle in Northern California. Woods used to skip right past late-season tournaments such as this one, but he has played all of 61/2 rounds since the Masters last April.

Fred Couples finished off John Cook with a nifty wedge shot to three feet on the third hole of a playoff Sunday in the Seniors Players Championship at Harrison, N.Y. Couples won his first senior major title, closing with an even-par 71 to match Cook (70) at 11 under on Westchester Country Club's West Course — a longtime PGA Tour venue where Couples estimated he has played about 100 rounds in 30 years. Peter Senior (71) was third at 10 under. Couples joined Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd as the only players to win the Players Championship on the regular and senior tours.